Hey, there! Log in / Register

Why's a New York group pumping $200,000 into effort to get a Cambridge city councilor elected a state senator?

By adamg on Wed, 08/31/2016 - 9:12pm

Kevin Franck ponders the $200,000 a dark-money New York group gave to the pro-charter Democrats for Education Reform earlier this month to try to help Leland Cheung defeat incumbent state Sen. Pat Jehlen in next week's Democratic primary.

Franck has some more on another tie between DfER and Cheung.

Neighborhoods: 
Cambridge
Topics: 
Politics
Free tagging: 
Leland Cheung
2016 elections
state senate


Ad:


Like the job UHub is doing? Consider a contribution. Thanks!

Comments

By A on Wed, 08/31/2016 - 9:26pm.

Democrats for Education Reform = DFER = Dark Money for Elitist Reform

up
Voting closed 0

By anon on Wed, 08/31/2016 - 9:38pm.

Glad I could clear that up.

up
Voting closed 0

By anon on Thu, 09/01/2016 - 11:06am.

http://www.masslive.com/news/boston/index.ssf/2014/08/super_pac_that_bac...

Or is it only corruption when you don't agree with someone's positions?

up
Voting closed 0

By bulgingbuick on Thu, 09/01/2016 - 11:51am.

the free market followers of Ayn Rand. What could possibly go wrong?

up
Voting closed 0

By anon on Thu, 09/01/2016 - 5:16pm.

I can't keep track of them all.

I'd be happy to see hundreds of FBI windbreakers going into various local government offices some morning. Let them sort it out.

up
Voting closed 0

By bgl on Wed, 08/31/2016 - 10:00pm.

Hate to be that guy, but...

*into (an) effort

up
Voting closed 0

By Ralph Boston on Thu, 09/01/2016 - 1:10am.

I think it is correct convention for a headline.

up
Voting closed 0

By perruptor on Thu, 09/01/2016 - 7:24am.

" I hate to be that guy"

up
Voting closed 0

By Felicity on Wed, 08/31/2016 - 10:25pm.

Pat Jehlen has been a wonderful leader and advocate for affordable housing, esp. for seniors and disabled.

https://www.senatoreldridge.com/press-releases/2368/massachusetts-senate...

http://medford.wickedlocal.com/article/20140414/NEWS/140419992

Pat Jehlen has integrity.

up
Voting closed 0

By BostonDog on Wed, 08/31/2016 - 11:06pm.

However, one gets the impression she only cares about people over 50. It's great she cares for the elderly but I wish she was more supportive of issues facing a younger crowd. She hardly is one to buck the power hierarchy on beacon hill.

up
Voting closed 0

By SwirlyGrrl on Wed, 08/31/2016 - 11:15pm.

Jehlen was part of a coalition that forced MA to provide more equitable funding to school districts across the Commonwealth.

She still has a lot of stake in the schools as she has several grown children and several grandchildren who are school age and attending public schools in Massachusetts.

That involvement in equitable funding, which has a lot to do with how we have the best schools in the nation, is one reason she is being targeted - she remains a powerful voice for quality public schools.

up
Voting closed 0

By Anonymous on Wed, 08/31/2016 - 11:48pm.

Yes, it's the Foundation Budget and it's the formula by which state aid funds local school districts.

Last year the Foundation Budget Review Commission found that it's time to update the formula. Items like health insurance, special education and other items inflated at higher rates than anticipated in 1993.

The senate tried to pass that new funding in a bill called the RISEact that also increased the cap on charters contingent on charter schools' compliance with reforms and FBRC appropriation, over 7 years, in 1/7 of total increments.

The senate passed the RISEact. The house did not produce a bill Charter industry lobby wasn't interested in any of the reforms the Senate put on the table.

There were three parts of the 1993 Education Bill. The funding was the most successful element. Charters were the second piece, to mixed success. I can't recall the third.

up
Voting closed 0

By BostonDog on Thu, 09/01/2016 - 6:31am.

She's good for kids and seniors. Great. I've got no issue with that.

I wish I saw her taking a lead on things like telecommunications reforms, going after stupid professional licensing requirements designed to keep competition down, etc. These are the sorts of nuts and bolts of government that don't get airtime like public school funding but are as important.

I don't think she's a bad rep, it's just that she isn't taking on what I think are the deeper problems within the state.

up
Voting closed 0

By anon on Thu, 09/01/2016 - 8:28am.

you really think "telecommunications reform" and "stupid professional licensing requirements" are the "deeper problems within the state?"

I mean, I agree with you on both of the issues you mention. Perhaps not to the same degree, but certainly the same direction. And I think the legislature can walk and chew gum at the same time. But I also think that of all the issues we're facing -- a failure to manage transportation infrastructure, incredibly high state school tuition, poverty, gaps in medical, dental, and mental health coverage, a state court system loaded with structural injustices, the drug-of-the-week crisis, and our contribution to climate change... you're worried about taxi and barber licenses?

up
Voting closed 0

By Charles Bahne on Wed, 08/31/2016 - 11:59pm.

I was wondering who was behind all those robocalls I've been getting from Cheung's campaign.

Full disclosure: I first met Pat Jehlen 40 years ago, when I was volunteering in the day care center that her son attended. That was when she first decided to run for office, for Somerville School Committee. I have followed her career with admiration for her progressive positions for the past four decades. But as a Cambridge resident I had to observe her career from afar, until the last redistricting when I ended up in her Senate district.

I know that Pat Jehlen is dedicated to the people that she serves, in the communities adjacent to where she lives.

Mr. Cheung, on the other hand, strikes me as a perfect political opportunist. He always seems to be running for some higher position. This is my personal opinion, but I suspect that if he is elected he will just see the Senate seat as another rung on the political ladder, to be mounted once and then soon passed by. I doubt if he would remain in that post for more than a term or two, before setting his sights on a higher office. The fact that he is receiving all this money from out of state tells you where his true interests lie.

up
Voting closed 0

By theszak on Thu, 09/01/2016 - 8:44pm.

Official Specimen Ballot... click on image at
https://www.reddit.com/r/boston/comments/50b4ur/cambridge_massachusetts_...

Available by email https://www.cambridgema.gov/election please post a Sample Specimen Ballot for Senator, Second Middlesex...
Cambridge Wards 9 to 11
Medford
Somerville
Winchester Precincts 4 to 7

up
Voting closed 0